This week, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s
Striped Bass Management Board will meet to determine state compliance with Addendum
IV to Amendment 6 of the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management
Plan, which was supposed to reduce fishing mortality coastwide by 25%, when
compared to such mortality in 2013. The
rule for Chesapeake Bay was a little different; there, because of certain
actions already taken in the region, the Bay jurisdictions were required to cut
landings by 20.5%, when compared to 2012.
As part of the management process, ASMFC issued a 2016
Review of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission Fishery Management
Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which reviewed each state’s landings
and measured such states’ compliance with Addendum IV.
It is an interesting document that contains some good, some
bad and some ambiguous news; such news is worded in very careful ways.
The good news is that, over all, there were meaningful
reductions in fishing mortality.
The coastal commercial fishery reduced harvest by 32.6%
compared to 2013, which was a good thing. All states except Rhode Island managed to keep
landings below their individual quotas.
Rhode Island exceeded its quota by a modest amount, not quite 7,000
pounds’ the state’s commercial fishermen were held fully accountable for that
overage, with the excess landings deducted from their 2016 quota.
Chesapeake Bay’s commercial fishermen also stayed within
their quota. 2015 landings were 24.2%
below landings in 2012.
There was also good news with respect to coastal
recreational landings. Harvest was down
41% compared to 2013, although how much of that was due to the regulations, and
how much due to reduced angling effort brought about by an absence of bass, is
open to debate. Nearly all the states managed
to reduce their landings by at least 25%.
The one exception was, to no one’s surprise, New Jersey, which always
seems to convince the relevant Technical Committee to let it adopt “conservation
equivalent” regulations that allow Garden State anglers to kill more fish than
their peers in other states and shirk their responsibilities to help conserve
the stock.
However, the greatest failure was that of Chesapeake Bay
anglers. They were supposed to decrease
their landings by 20.5%; they ended up increasing
their landings by 52.4% instead. And a
significant percentage of those fish were between 18 and 22 inches (fork
length) long, strongly suggesting that they were from the big 2011 year
class that, according to the
most recent benchmark stock assessment, is supposed to play a meaningful
role in rebuilding the stock.
Killing too many of those fish is clearly not good. The question is, what is anyone going to do
about it.
It doesn’t appear that ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Plan
Development Team is recommending remedial action. It states in its 2016 Review that
“each state and jurisdiction implemented a management program
for 2015 consistent with the requirements of Amendment 6 and Addenda I-IV.”
Maybe that’s true, and maybe it isn’t. It all depends on what one means by “consistent
with the requirements of Amendment 6 and Addenda I-IV.”
If one means adopting recreational regulations that are the
same as, or adjudged equivalent to, those included in the final version of
Addendum IV, then the statement is perfectly correct.
On the other hand, if one means actually getting the job
done in practice, not just on paper, and reducing recreational harvest 25% on
the coast and 20.5% in Chesapeake Bay, then some states’ regulations aren’t
consistent with Addendum IV at all.
The question is, what is ASMFC’s Striped Bass Management
Board going to do about it?
If it was up to the State of Maryland, they would increase the kill and reward that state's anglers for not reducing their harvest, by giving them even more fish. Last
December, Mike Luisi, of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, told a
Striped Bass Management Board meeting that
“I’ve heard the word ‘crisis’ from my stakeholders. The charter, the recreational and the
commercial industry are all suffering greatly as a result of the reductions
that we’ve taken…
“This board gave us the opportunity in the Chesapeake Bay to
seek a lesser reduction of 20.5 percent.
We implemented measures to achieve that 20.5 percent. What we’ve been hearing through Wave 4 on the
recreational harvest indicates that we’re grossly over that 20.5…
“I can’t sit back and explain to people in my state that we’re
going to hold the line and we’re going to wait until 2019 before any
consideration would be given to making corrections given that there was no
socioeconomic evaluation of these reductions, fishing mortality was at the
target, given the latest best available science.”
To be fair, a 2015
update to the benchmark stock assessment did paint a rosier picture than
did the benchmark assessment itself.
While the benchmark assessment made it appear extremely likely that the
stock would be overfished at some point in 2015, the 2015 update reduced the
likelihood of overfishing to a mere 49%...
Fishing mortality, on the other hand, at 0.205, was a little
closer to threshold (0.219) then target (0.180).
But what is really striking about the Maryland statement is
how wrong
the basic premise was.
While the commercial sector did accept a real reduction in
landings, it’s hard to understand how Maryland anglers experienced a “crisis”
and were “suffering” as a result of regulations that allowed their landings to
increase by 50%.
And as far as Maryland’s recreational harvest reductions being
“grossly” more than 20.5%, well, the data shows us that the only thing grossly
out of hand was the level of misrepresentation.
One has to wonder whether representatives of the state feel
any shame when they try to present a 50% increase in landings as a “crisis”
resulting in “suffering,” and try to use it to justify an increased kill.
And since that 50% increase over what Maryland caught in
2012 represents a nearly 100% increase
over what Maryland should have
landed in 2015, one also has to wonder whether anyone will hold Maryland
accountable for killing far too many striped bass.
Think about it.
Rhode
Island commercial striped bass fishermen exceeded their state quota by less
than 4%, and are going to have those fish subtracted from their quota this
year. Maryland recreational striped bass fishermen exceeded their target by
about 95%.
Is it right that they should get off
scott-free, willing and able to overfish once again in 2017?
I’m not suggesting that they pay back their overage; if they
did, they wouldn’t fish at all in the upcoming season. But it wouldn’t be unreasonable for the
Management Board to compel Maryland to adopt new regulations that will actually
have a chance of achieving a 20.5% reduction, instead of an increase, in
landings.
New Jersey presents a far less egregious, but still
objectionable, situation.
The state was
allowed to adopt regulations that supposedly had “conservation equivalency” to
a one-fish bag and 28-inch minimum size.
On paper, perhaps they did. But
after a year of on-the-water experience, it’s clear that not only did New
Jersey fail to reduce its harvest by the minimum 25%, but that its landings
reduction was far less than that of nearby states that hewed to the 1 fish at
28 inches standard.
That makes it pretty clear that the New Jersey rules are not
“equivalent” to the standard adopted in Addendum IV, and provides solid ground
for the Management Board to refuse to allow the state to follow the same
regulations next year. It should be
either compelled to adhere to the 1-fish, 28-inch standard, or come up with
rules more likely to truly have a similar impact on harvest.
Whether ASMFC does take action to rein in such state
excesses will tell us whether it truly believes in states sharing the burdens
and benefits of fisheries management or, whether George Orwell’s Animal Farm had it
right, and
“all animals are equal but some animals [including fish hogs] are more equal than others.”
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